The Guilt Of Macbeth And Lady Macbeth

845 words - 3 pages

The Guilt of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

Guilt is a very strong and uncomfortable feeling that often results from one’s own actions. This strong emotion is one of the theme ideas in William Shakespeare, “Macbeth”. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth feel guilt, but they react in different ways. Guilt hardens Macbeth, but cause Lady Macbeth to commit suicide. As Macbeth shrives to success guilt overcome’s Macbeth where he can no longer think straight. Initially Macbeth planned was to kill Duncan but it wasn’t enough he also had to kill Banquo and Macduff’s family. On the other hand Lady Macbeth had to call upon the weird sister to unsexed her so she had no true feeling towards anything as if she was a man. However, the true guilt of the murder can fall on either Lady Macbeth or Macbeth.
Perhaps one of the strongest obvious evidence that show guilt, is how it affects lady Macbeth, how she couldn’t handle it any longer, and that was the reason of her death. Lady Macbeth realizes that nothing could ever get rid of the smell of the blood and the guilt caused by all the murders committed by Macbeth. “Here’s is the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O!’’, (V, I, 53-55) It’s also shown here that she feels responsible for every person her Husband killed. The guilt of Duncan's murder can be placed firmly on the hand on Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth wants the murder of Duncan for her own gains. Given the present situation, she is hungry for power. The weird sisters predicted that Macbeth would be king. This means that the obvious result would be Lady Macbeth will be queen. Instead of waiting for Duncan to die naturally or to be killed by someone else, she forces the task onto Macbeth.
As for Macbeth going through with the murders he has a clear understanding of his motives and their consequences. After hearing the weird sister, his ambition got the best of him .He considered murdering Duncan and the morality of the murder. Guilt plays a large role in how he acts after he commits their crimes. But guilt isn’t so obvious with Macbeth ,before he kill’s Duncan ,Macbeth feels guilt and consider backing out of the murder, but lady Macbeth won’t let him, “But Screw your courage to the sticking place, And we’ll not Fail “,(I, IV,70-71).Once again Macbeth sees that what he is doing...

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